What will become of my beloved CDs?

Hold on to those CDs man. Another twenty years or so and they will be all the rage. People will collect them and marvel at the sound quality such an old technology can bring. They will marvel at the life-like quality of the recordings. They will go to yard sales, garage sales, pawn shops, specialty shops and will have their brains implanted with tiny chips as a replacement for those E-bay auctions, but without the computer and net connection, and will be able to buy them, sight unseen, from clear around the globe. Hold on to that dream...

In the future, you won't own recordings at all. You'll subscribe to a service that allows you to download any music you want, at any resolution you want, any time you want.

As for your CDs, there will always be players around, but don't expect much of a market for vintage CDs the way there is (or was, since the market is changing) for vintage vinyl. There is nothing about an old CD that will make it more desirable than a download. (Excepting, of course, those inevitable rarities that aren't available for download.)

As for that hard drive, you can plug a 20-gig iPod into your car stereo already. However much disk space you need, you will have some day.

bomarc,

If you, by any chance, still roam Audiogon forest please read this thread again. Pay special attention to your post from, to the day, 16 years ago. What a vision.

+1 pbb! Physical media will always have some future value! Even ancient 78's have their fan collectors! I'm keeping and using my CD's. I refuse to believe the hype that Hi-Rez streaming is better! Redbook recording and playback fully satisfies the Nyquist theorem!

The capacity of humans for self-delusion is unlimited - Mr.Spock